Espenshade Redux – Selective Colleges & Inequality
I recently blogged about Thomas Espenshade, author of a Princeton University study that showed students of Asian descent are discriminated against at elite colleges and universities.
He came up with what he probably thinks is a bold plan to close the racial academic achievement gap. Calling it a project “with the same scale, urgency, and sense of importance as the original Manhattan Project,” Espenshade proposes to monitor the lives of up to 50,000 children from birth to age eighteen to try to determine what causes the racial gap and how parents, schools, neighborhoods, and the government can work together to close it.
Instead of spending massive resources on such a project, he should spend some time with students and teachers at KIPP and related schools.
Espenshade’s research shows the extent of lowered standards for blacks in higher education. For instance, black students admitted to elite colleges and universities receive the equivalent of a 310 SAT-point boost. Hispanics receive a 130-point boost. Standards for black applicants whose ancestors were American slaves are lower than those for blacks of multiracial background or who are first- or second-generation immigrants.
Espenshade is back in the news, as it were. A columnist for the New Jersey Star-Ledger blogged about Espenshade’s Manhattan Project-like proposal for improving the performance of minorities. Apparently his research shows that Princeton contributes to racial “inequality” because the school favors “affluent, advantaged students.” Yet, his research also shows how selective schools lower standards for minorities.
Racial preferences aren’t enough, says Espenshade, because the practice takes too long, and states are banning preferences in government admissions. But he’ll take them.
“If preferences for minority students were eliminated, acceptance especially for black applicants would be dramatically reduced,” reads the study. “The acceptance rates for blacks could be expected to fall from 31 percent under current policy to 13 percent, reducing the number of black students admitted by more than half.”
The study also notes that race-neutral admissions polices would reduce white acceptance rates, too. On average, students who descend from certain Asian countries outperform whites.
Sounds like a plan. Adopt race-neutral admissions, and let under- and over-representation fall where they may. That way, bureaucrats, teachers, and parents can adopt old-school teaching methods that worked well for minorities in the past, and understand why current methods and policies aren’t working. I recommend you read Thomas Sowell’s Black Rednecks and White Liberals.
